sports Article
Longitudinal Change in the Relationship between Fundamental Motor Skills and Perceived Competence: Kindergarten to Grade 2 Jeff R. Crane 1, * 1 2
*
ID
, John T. Foley 2
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, Patti-Jean Naylor 1 and Viviene A. Temple 1
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School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education, University of Victoria; Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada;
[email protected] (P.-J.N.);
[email protected] (V.A.T.) Physical Education Department, State University of New York College at Cortland, Cortland, NY 13045, USA;
[email protected] Correspondence:
[email protected]
Received: 8 June 2017; Accepted: 7 August 2017; Published: 10 August 2017
Abstract: As children transition from early to middle childhood, the relationship between motor skill proficiency and perceptions of physical competence should strengthen as skills improve and inflated early childhood perceptions decrease. This study examined change in motor skills and perceptions of physical competence and the relationship between those variables from kindergarten to grade 2. Participants were 250 boys and girls (Mean age = 5 years 8 months in kindergarten). Motor skills were assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 and perceptions were assessed using a pictorial scale of perceived competence. Mixed-design analyses of variance revealed there was a significant increase in object-control skills and perceptions from kindergarten to grade 2, but no change in locomotor skills. In kindergarten, linear regression showed that locomotor skills and object-control skills explained 10% and 9% of the variance, respectively, in perceived competence for girls, and 7% and 11%, respectively, for boys. In grade 2, locomotor skills predicted 11% and object-control skills predicted 19% of the variance in perceptions of physical competence, but only among the boys. Furthermore, the relationship between motor skills and perceptions of physical competence strengthened for boys only from early to middle childhood. However, it seems that forces other than motor skill proficiency influenced girls’ perceptions of their abilities in grade 2. Keywords: motor skills; motor competence; physical literacy; perceptions of competence; children; longitudinal; early childhood; middle childhood
1. Introduction Lower perceptions of physical or sport competence are associated with dropout from organized sport among children and youth [1] and avoidance of physical education [2], whereas higher perceptions of physical competence are consistently associated with greater participation in physical activity among children and youth [3–6]. With low levels of physical activity worldwide, it is important to understand the development of self-perceptions and motor skills in children and youth so participation can be enhanced. As children transition from early to middle childhood, hypothetically two processes should strengthen the relationship between motor skill proficiency and perceptions of physical competence. First, motor skills generally improve during childhood [7–11], and second, perceptions of physical competence generally decrease as children develop cognitively [5,12–14]. Further, developmental theorists note that as children age and become more exposed to additional factors that influence their perceptions, they rely less on the feedback from significant others (e.g., parents and caretakers), and more on that from other sources (e.g., peers) [15]. Overall, motor skills are less developed in early Sports 2017, 5, 59; doi:10.3390/sports5030059
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childhood than in middle childhood [9]; however, children’s physical competence beliefs tend to be higher and less accurate in early childhood [13,15]. To date, the relationship between fundamental motor skill proficiency and perceived physical competence in early childhood is unclear. Five studies have examined this relationship using identical tools [1,16–19], specifically, the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (TGMD-2; Ulrich, 2000) to assess motor proficiency and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Acceptance for Young Children [20] to assess perceptions of physical competence. Three of the studies found significant positive relationships between either locomotor skill and perceptions and object control skills and perceptions, but Crane et al. [2] found that the relationship was only significant for boys. Contrastingly, two other studies did not find significant relationships between motor skill proficiency and perceptions of physical competence [16,19]. It is possible that the relationship in the Goodway and Rudisill [16] study differed because the children had extremely low motor skill scores. In slightly older children (8 years of age), Yu and colleagues [21] examined this relationship among children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing children. These authors reported that children with DCD had lower perceptions of their physical abilities and displayed lower motor proficiency levels than their typically developing peers. In addition, they found that physical coordination was a predictor of object control skills [21]. As they age, children’s expanding cognitive abilities enable greater awareness of their own competence and performances [22] and allow them to: compare their performances to their peers’ performances, analyze the reasons for their successes and failures, and internalize feedback [13,23,24], resulting in less inflated perceptions. As children mature, those with less proficient skills will more likely have less favourable physical competence perceptions, and those with well-developed motor skills more favourable [14], which can significantly influence physical activity and sport participation patterns. Although no studies have tracked the relationship between fundamental motor skills and perceived physical competence from early to middle childhood longitudinally, Spessato and colleagues [19] assessed this relationship in a cross-section of children at different ages. As might be expected developmentally, Spessato et al. found that the relationship was not significant among the 4- and 5-year-old children, but it was significant among the 6-year-old children. Sex-based differences in fundamental motor skill proficiency as well as in the relationship between motor skills and perceptions have also been identified. Results of a recent systematic review and meta-analysis of the correlates of gross motor competence revealed that sex was a correlate of gross motor competence in more than 40 studies worldwide [25]. Boys have consistently shown higher object control skills and a stronger relationship between object control skills and perceptions of competence, compared to girls [10,12,17,18,26,27]. The evidence is less clear for locomotor skills. Several studies demonstrated that girls have better locomotor skill proficiency [10,12,18], while other studies found no differences [28]. For perceptions of physical competence, LeGear and colleagues [18] found that 5-year-old girls and boys had high perceptions of their physical competence, but that girls’ perceptions were significantly higher than boys’. On the other hand, Robinson [17] found that 4-year-old boys had higher levels than girls, and Goodway et al. [16] found no sex-based differences among 3–4-year-olds. However, current models such that presented by as Stodden et al. [15] have not included sex differences. Part of the impetus for this study was to test aspects of Stodden and colleagues’ [15] developmental model published in Quest. Stodden et al. hypothesized that in both early and middle childhood, perceptions of competence would predict motor skill proficiency, but for slightly different reasons. In early childhood, positive perceptions may help in the development of motor skills because the children do not really differentiate between the effort they put into their activity and the outcomes (i.e., success or failure), while in middle-childhood, improvements in motor skill proficiency coupled with positive perceptions of their ability should encourage children to continue to practice and refine their skills, which in turn leads to more positive perceptions. However, Stodden et al. [15] did not include gender in their model.
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There is a need to further our understanding of the developmental trajectory of perceptions of physical competence and the relationship between perceptions and motor proficiency, especially from early to mid-childhood and between boys and girls. A longitudinal design was used to examine the relationship between fundamental motor skill proficiency and perceptions of physical competence from early childhood to the beginning of middle childhood. Focusing on children’s transition from kindergarten to grade 2, four hypotheses were tested: (1) that motor skill proficiency would increase, (2) that perceptions of physical competence would decrease, (3) that sex-based differences would be evident for motor skills and perceptions of physical competence, and (4) that the relationship between motor competence and perceived competence would strengthen. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Participants Children were eligible to participate if they were attending one of eight consenting elementary schools in one school district in British Columbia, Canada. Census data from Statistics Canada indicates that, as of 2014, British Columbia families have a median income of approximately 10% higher than the national median [18]. In the school district used in the present study, rates of vulnerability (as measured by the Early Development Index) are lower than, or equivalent to other British Columbia school districts [13,19]. Two cohorts of children were examined. In kindergarten, participants for cohort one were recruited during the 2010–2011 school year (wave 1) and cohort two during the 2011–2012 school year (wave 2). These kindergarten cohorts were tracked to grade 2 using data collected between October and May 2012–2013 and 2013–2014. Children were included in the longitudinal sample if they had complete motor skills and perceptions of competence data in both kindergarten and grade 2. The University of Victoria Human Research Ethics Board and the School District approved this study. Parents provided consent and children provided assent. 2.2. Materials Fundamental motor skills (six locomotor skills: run, jump, hop, slide, gallop, and leap; and six object control skills: throw, roll, kick, strike, catch, and dribble) were assessed using the TGMD-2 [9]—a criterion and norm-referenced test with established test-retest reliability and evidence of content, construct, and criterion validity [10]. Additionally, body mass index (BMI) was measured as a potential confounder. The Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Acceptance for Young Children—preschool and kindergarten [29] and The Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Acceptance for Young Children—first and second grade [30] were used to assess perceptions of physical competence. Each scale consists of 24 items subdivided into four subscales (six statements each): Cognitive Competence, Physical Competence, Peer Acceptance, and Maternal Acceptance. Only the perception of physical competence subscale was used for this study. Both versions of the test contain the same number of questions, as well as the same subscales and script to be read; however, two skills were changed to be more age appropriate. For the physical domain, two questions (bouncing a ball and jumping rope) were added by Harter and Pike [20] to the grade 1 and 2 version of the survey, while tying one’s shoes and hopping on one foot were omitted. The surveys have acceptable reliability and validity for use with kindergarten and grade 2 children [20]. 2.3. Procedures A team of 10 trained research assistants collected these data. The TGMD-2 was administered during scheduled physical education classes in accordance with the testing procedure outlined in the Examiner’s Manual [9]. Each class was divided into four small groups prior to entering the gymnasium, with each group consisting of 3–5 children. Each consented child was digitally recorded performing the skills at their station twice before moving onto the next station. After all skills were recorded, trained
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research assistants measured the height and weight of each participant to determine BMI. Due to scheduling and time constraints, data were collected over multiple visits to each school. The Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Acceptance for Young Children [20] was administered by the research assistants individually with each child in a quiet area. 2.4. Data Treatment and Analyses The principal investigator scored the behavioural components of each of the 12 skills dichotomously using digital video. The number of components completed correctly for each subtest (locomotor and object control skills) was summed to provide a raw score (range 0–48). The items of both versions of The Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children assessing physical competence were scored on a scale of 1–4 for each item. Scores from the physical competence subscale questions were summed (six items total) to provide a raw score out of 24 (range 6–24). Descriptive statistics were then computed for locomotor skills, object control skills, and perceptions of physical competence in kindergarten and grade 2. Specifically, means and standard deviations, as well as percent of maximum possible score (POMP) [31] were calculated. POMP was calculated using the following equation: (Observed score − minimum possible/maximum possible − minimum possible) × 100. To test whether motor skills improved (Hypothesis 1) and perceptions decreased (Hypothesis 2), we performed a mixed-design analysis of variance to examine the change in perceived competence, locomotor and object control skills over time using sex as the between-subject factor and grade level as the within-subjects factor. Further, paired-sample t-tests were conducted to examine change or stability in each of the 12 skills. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were computed to test the relationships between locomotor skills and perceptions of physical competence and between object control skills and perceptions of physical competence for boys and girls in kindergarten and in grade 2 (Hypotheses 3 and 4). Further, a series of linear regression analyses were conducted to predict perceptions of physical competence (as the outcome variable) from locomotor and object control skills (predictor variables) in kindergarten and grade 2 for boys and girls separately. All statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS (Version 23.0, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) for Windows [32], and alpha value for rejecting the null hypothesis was set at
